


Asexual!Spencer Reid: A Headcanon's Explanation [meta]

by luvtheheaven



Series: Metas I've Written (Various Fandoms) [10]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Spencer Reid, Embedded Video, F/M, Gen, Meta, Other, Video Format: Streaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvtheheaven/pseuds/luvtheheaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This headcanon is fairly common. This OFTEN means that many viewers, especially viewers who are aro and/or ace like myself (I'm aro-spectrum-ish and 100% asexual), when looking through the show to see if any of the main characters COULD POSSIBLY be stretched to be ace, realize Reid FITS asexuality (and sometimes, to a lesser extent, aromanticism).</p><p>This does NOT mean that Reid doesn't ALSO fit other potential interpretations. Could Reid be bisexual/pansexual? Perhaps. Could Reid be, as the show defaults every single one of the main characters to being, heterosexual and interested in women? SURE. </p><p>But this meta essay isn't about those interpretations.</p><p>This meta essay is about: what if Reid could possibly be asexual?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1: seasons 1-4

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that you must watch the video in order to fully 'read' this essay, FYI, since most of it is in video form. The "Other thoughts" I've written out are just what I chose to LEAVE OUT of the video.

 

This is NOT a traditional fanvideo, and more of a casual and silly "fandom meta essay" in video form. If you're interested in a BEAUTIFUL Spencer Reid related video, check out this one THUNDERBRAT8 made for me for Vidders4aCause: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6zKi1ET3Aw> or if you're looking in general for other, more typical, Criminal Minds vidding of mine, check out my playlist of other CM vidding here: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQIrXD4weMlinwPXXtrqLETE5I8TPog2N> \- and note that I do plan to make multiple Criminal Minds fanvids in the relatively near future. They will be typical fanvids with lyric matching and emotional tributes to specific bonds. I am excited to make them. I have rewatched the entire series once other than the final season - season 11 - meaning seasons 1-10 I saw twice, and season 11 I've only seen once. After that rewatch of seasons 1-10, somehow I got to the point where I am currently midway through season 5 on my SECOND re-watch of it. This time around, which is my third time seeing most episodes (although a few select episodes I've seen more than three times) I've been taking notes on things that might be fun to write meta about AND/OR on specific aspects of the show I might want to vid, like a tribute to Dave Rossi & Aaron Hotchner's friendship, and many of the other individual dynamics on the show too.  
  
I realized I had enough notes in the Memos section of my smartphone about the topic: "Reid as (aromantic? heteroromantic??) asexual" to make a whole video, and so instead of sleeping last night... I made this whole thing. I made it in one sitting, ridiculously rushed and quickly, so I'm sorry if I didn't tweak all of the clips/especially if I didn't tweak all of the audio's volume perfectly.  
  
IMPORTANT: This headcanon is fairly common. This OFTEN means that many viewers, especially viewers who are aro and/or ace like myself (I'm aro?? ace), when looking through the show to see if any of the main characters COULD POSSIBLY be stretched to be ace, Reid FITS.  
  
This does NOT mean that Reid doesn't ALSO fit other potential interpretations. Could Reid be bisexual/pansexual and his "old friend Ethan" have been "more than a friend" in the sense that they had a sexual history and/or Reid had attraction toward him? Perhaps. Could Reid be, as the show defaults every single one of the main characters to being, heterosexual and interested in women? SURE. Many straight guys might act like Reid at times, be uncomfortable talking about the taboo subject of sex in general, be saving themselves for "The One", be socially awkward and late to figure out dating, etc.  
  
But this meta essay isn't about those interpretations.  
  
This meta essay is about what if Reid could possibly be asexual? Especially in a show that happens to bring up human sexuality in the abstract all the time, a show that acknowledges bisexuality as a thing, a show where the writers seem to not know asexuality exists, but a show where someone like Reid for whatever reason remains single for the vast majority of the show's 11 season (so far) run.  
  
Other thoughts I have:  
  
1x04 - Reid is excited that JJ calls him "Spence", since she's the only person in the world to give him that nickname, and it feels intimate. Why couldn't that be a platonic intimacy? For someone as lonely as Reid seems, why wouldn't he want to date, even if he was aromantic AND asexual AND sex-averse? Gideon pushes him to ask her out and WHY is nothing ever shown about what happened? Why is JJ/Reid not even briefly canon? I feel it could be compatible with an ace!Reid reading of the show.

1x18 is perhaps the most explicit "proof" within the first four seasons that Reid is attracted to women. He seems into Lila at MANY points throughout this ep in not "just" a platonic way, and not even "just" a romantic way. He kisses her back in the pool passionately. But ultimately we don't actually know what he's thinking, and someone could be gray-asexual and ONE way for gray-aceness to manifest is for a person to be attracted to people with no desire to act on that. Reid could be asexual-but-intellectually-intrigued-by a conventionally attractive person flirting with him. Sometimes people consider someone attractive but not in a way that feels sexual to them. So even if they enjoy kissing or experience aesthetic attraction toward people, as long as they don't feel a pull towards actually having sex. The other way a viewer could explain away episode 1x18 despite an ace Reid headcanon is to concede that Reid was NOT ace in this one episode, this episode's writer didn't interpret him that way, but that actually he was acting "out of character", and that overall the series as a whole and MOST episodes still support him as ace, despite all this.

2x01 - "People tell me their secrets all the time because they know I have no one to betray them to." Reid as "single" is potentially compatible with the way many asexual and/or aromantic people live their lives, whether or not they know asexuality or aromanticism are possible orientations.

2x05 - Reid realizes Elle might need to talk, goes into her hotel room, she offers him alcohol, and there is not a single hint that either person finds the other attractive, not a single implication that this could be romantic or intimate in anything other than a pure friendship, almost familial way. At least, that's how it feels to me.

3x01 includes Reid unfazed by porn magazines in an unsub's locker.  
  
In episode 3x05, around 26 or 27 minutes into the episode, there is another contradictory-to-an-ace-headcanon moment for Reid. He tells a young boy, "When I was 13 I was starting to notice girls," but then elaborates that he was was really awkward. He says it's "becoming a man" and that it "happens to everyone" (another invalidating statement to all gay OR asexual men, because no, attraction to women is not part of "becoming an adult" nor is it truly universal). Because at this point Reid is trying to determine if a 13-year-old molested his young cousin due to his new sexual urges, Reid is trying to save the young girl's life and would likely say whatever he needed to to the boy to manipulate him & develop rapport, Reid could potentially just be lying here. This is a way to POTENTIALLY explain away this moment where the writers could be argued to be establishing Reid as straight. Because honestly, we don't know if he was truthful here. He also said "notice" - if you stretch it, he could have meant it not necessarily in a sexual way.

3x06 includes Rossi being extremely harsh to an unsub, using the fact of someone being impotent as a detail worthy of extreme bullying and ridicule. Many asexual people, including many ace men, are NOT impotent, but at the same time of the subset of people out there who are impotent, a fairly high percentage are likely to identify as asexual. So this feels like a relevant moment within the canon of the show in terms of how asexuality is treated, most broadly speaking, by the writers.

3x16 around 13 min in, Morgan makes a comment about sexy women in posters on his bedroom walls. Reid doesn't react. Reid is established as straight again at 30 min in when he recounts being tricked in high school into a bullying situation by the temptation of "the prettiest girl in school" wanting to meet him "behind the bleachers". That being said, knowing that a particular girl is considered to be the prettiest or is conventionally/aesthetically attractive is different than thinking of her in a sexual way. Note he chose the word "prettiest" and not "hottest". It's not perhaps as clear-cut proof of him being straight as it could be.

In season 4 there's this: <http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/post/147278948507/szejo-the-article-on-william-reids-computer> Lol - in the ep when he sees his father this is another moment that validates a Reid as aro ace/as non-straight/as not interested in girls interpretation of the show, in the fine print if you pause on the news articles...

4x23 - at 8 minutes in, Reid suggests the unsub could be overcompensating for impotence with the big car as murder weapon. Since I like to consider the possibility that Reid himself is impotent **as part of one of my potential ace headcanons for him (mainly because I'm desperate to see characters like myself** and while I am a cis female so the word "impotent" doesn't exactly apply to me,[ I am a non-libidoist ace with non-arousability](http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/post/136204244272/non-libidoism-asexuality-aka-i-have-never-had).) 20 min and 30 sec the topic is brought up again.

I'm not saying all this is PROOF that he is ace. I'm just explaining WHY the idea of him potentially being ace has even crossed some of our minds at all. :P

Seasons 1-4 alone have all this, and I look forward to compiling more moments as the seasons continue.

(P.S. Tumblr reblog link: <http://luvtheheaven.tumblr.com/post/147863007572/asexualspencer-reid-a-headcanons-explanation>... 

...and there are a couple comments over on YouTube too, by the way! Check them out if you're curious. <https://youtu.be/UDj76hlLV8k> )


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus, a new multi-fandom fanvideo I made about my asexuality & sex-aversion ft. a little of Reid & Maeve in season 8. (the Reid and Maeve parts are 2:25 till the end)


End file.
